Psychiatric Bulletin (1989), 13, 186-188

So you've heard of the Gaskell medal: but who was Gaskell?

DIGBYTAMTAM,Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, University of Manchester

The benefaction for the award of an annual medal died in infancy and were buried with their parents in and prize to a member of the Royal Medico- the chapel yard. Psychological Association was made by Mrs Sam's father died at the age of 42, when Sam was Elizabeth Holland, in memory of her brother, 12. This must have been a difficult period for the Samuel. She was herself a remarkable woman, who family as Margaret had died at the age of six, three married a banker, had ten children, translated poetry years before, and John died at the age of four, two from the German, began a social club for unem years after. Margaret senior married again when Sam ployed men, founded a cottage hospital, and was was 15, to the Reverend Dimmock, a Unitarian well-known for her wit, conversation and unflappa- minister. bility. However, she came from a remarkable family. Samuel wanted to become a doctor early in life, Her older brother, William, was a noted Unitarian partly in response, perhaps, to the death of his sister, minister, philanthropist, and writer. Her sister-in- but the family were told by their general practitioner law, William's wife, was Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell, that Sam's eyes were too weakened by measles, and author of North and South, Wivesand Daughters, and he was therefore apprenticed to a Liverpool pub a celebrated, and for a season notorious, Life of lisher and book-seller. Both Sam and his older Charlotte Bronte, as well as several other novels brother, William, had received private tuition at and short stories. Two of Elizabeth and William's home from an Anglican minister, the Reverend children, Meta and Julia, were so well-loved in Joseph Saul, and Sam took pleasure in reading many Manchester that flags flew at half-mast on their of the books he was required to sell, which included deaths. medical textbooks. Eventually Sam was remitted the Samuel was born in Warrington in 1807. last years of his apprenticeship and became appren Warrington at the beginning of the 19th century was ticed, at the age of 18,to Robert Thorpe, a surgeon at a thriving industrial town, famous for its sail-canvas the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He subsequently manufacture. Indeed half of the ships at Trafalgar studied in Glasgow where he qualified MRCS at the boasted sails made in Warrington. It also had a strong age of 25 and returned to Manchester, just at the time tradition of dissenting Christianity. An academy had that cholera first reached Britain. Sam was appointed been founded in the town in the 18th century as an to Stockport Cholera Hospital. He continued to be alternative to a university for those who would not interested in cholera subsequently, and even after he swear to conform to the 39 articles, and Joseph was appointed Commissioner in Lunacy was rec Priestley had been an early teacher, of the British ommended by his sister-in-law Liza to Parthenope Constitution rather than chemistry surprisingly. Nightingale as being ready to give her sister Florence A Unitarian Chapel had been founded in "any information in his power" about the disease. Warrington in 1745, and the Gaskell family were In 1834 Sam was appointed house apothecary to among its staunches! members. The Gaskells were Manchester Royal Infirmary and its attached Luna one of the principal non-conformist families in the tic Asylum which had been opened in 1766 with 22 North West, and had been involved in the foundation beds. He became increasingly interested in the of the Academy and of the Public Library. Samuel's Asylum and in 1840 applied for the post of resident uncle, Holbrook, was a sponsor of Naismith, the medical superintendent of Lancaster Asylum. machine-builder, and became a millionaire. His Although he had been criticised by the coroner for father, William Gaskell, was a successful sail-cloth the death of a patient who drowned herself in the manufacturer with a business in Buttermarket Street hospital pond before he left the Infirmary, he was in the centre of Warrington. His mother, Margaret fully exonerated and he received a glowing reference Jackson, the "handsomest and best lady married in from his superior, Dr Bardsley, who wrote "I can Leyland Church for some time" as a contemporary most conscientiously state that it is impossible for newspaper said, had seven children of whom Samuel any public Medical Officer to have excelled him in the was the second. All of them were baptised in the exercise of these qualities"; these qualities being Cairo Street Chapel and two, Margaret and John, talent, diligence, application to duty, practical 186 Gaskell 187 knowledge and moral conduct. After he left, the of friends, or disappointment in affection in women, pond was drained without the consent of the hospital and intoxication, epilepsy, and religion in men. authorities on instructions from the police commis Sam had been a founder member of the Asylum sioners. His successor at the Infirmary was Joseph Medical Officers Association and hosted the Holland who became the superintendent of the second meeting of its successor, the Royal Medico- second asylum to be built in Lancashire, Prestwich Psychological Association, at Lancaster Asylum. He Hospital. became interested in the increasing number of ad Lancaster Asylum had been opened in 1816 fol missions of mentally handicapped children from the lowing legislation in 1808 requiring counties to Lancashire and Yorkshire dales, and visited the provide accommodation for mentally ill people. Its Hôpital Bicêtrein Paris, publishing an account of resident population rapidly grew from 60 in the first this visit in Chamber's Edinburgh Journal which year to 406 in 1836 and, in the absence of a medical advocated the separation of the care of the mentally superintendent, patient management was increas ill and the mentally handicapped long before that ingly custodial. Twenty-nine patients were in hand became accepted practice. cuffs, leg locks or strait-waistcoats when Sam took His appointment as a Lunacy Commissioner came up his appointment, and 30 to 40 more were chained at a welcome time for Sam who was beginning to find to boxed seats in heated rooms over a permanent the problem of long-stay patients a burden. He sewer which did away with the need for them to move moved to London, and began a round of regular even to the toilet. visits to asylums where he earned a reputation for Sam set himself to remedy this situation as soon as "being a remarkably well-informed and painstaking he could. Restraints were minimised, games and official". His obituarist in the British Medical Journal slide-shows in the winter were introduced, and meat goes on: "Proprietors and superintendents who did and tea appeared on the menu. Dances were organ not look too greatly into details for themselves were ised at which one of the patients would play the vio greatly surprised, and not greatly pleased, to find the lin. The situation at Lancaster improved so rapidly dignified Commissioner looking into beds and cup that Sam became well-known as a reformer. He was boards, and all manner of uninvestigated places". "It invited to assist in the plans for the new hospital should never be forgotten that what is called the non- (Cheadle Royal Infirmary) to replace his old work restraint system is not alone the abolition of mechan place, the Manchester Lunatic Asylum, and his work ical restraint, but that it connotes a revolution in the was recommended by a visiting French psychiatrist treatment of the insane in a great number of particu as better than anything else he had seen in England. lars, the neglect of which would render non-restraint, The Lunacy Commission had been granted more ex standing by itself, of comparatively little value. One tensive powers of hospital visitation in 1845, and in of the more important adjuncts to non-restraint was 1847 Lord Shaftesbury and other commissioners the improved night-nursing, instituted by the late visited Lancaster Asylum. They were impressed by Mr Gaskell". Sam had introduced the practice of Sam's achievements, by his development of a library routinely toilctting incontinent patients at regular for the patients, by the institution of work for intervals, thus reducing the filth and stench often patients, by the encouragement of patients to help associated with the wards at night but also having each other, and by the disappearance of the more the added advantage of ensuring that the night- unpleasant methods of treatment such as cupping attendants were awake and active. This resulted in and douching. Lord Shaftesbury resolved to appoint a reduction of the suicides, violence and disturb Sam to the Lunacy Commission as soon as there was ance which had previously not been uncommon at a vacancy and this arose in 1849. night. Sam had read widely in psychiatry. Books pre The attentions of the Lunacy Commissioners served from the hospital library of that period sometimes met with criticism not unknown to similar include Cullen's Practice of Physic, Esquirol's bodies today. After a visit by Sam and two of his Maladies Mentales, and books by Willis, Reid and colleagues, the committee of the Colney Hatch Bell. There also an autobiographical account of an Asylum (now Friern Barnet Hospital) "observed episode of psychiatric disorder by John Perceval, son with much regret that the more they have, from feel of the assassinated Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, ings of courtesy, listened to the representations of who had been confined in 1830 in conditions which the Commissioners in Lunacy, the more that body the book protested strongly. It is likely that these has attempted to encroach on the functions of the works further encouraged Sam's philanthropy but Committee of Visitors, and to assume a tone of also stimulated his scientific interest. His first report, dictation ...". Nor was this the only hazard of the in 1841, contains an interesting section on the causes job. One of Sam's colleagues on this visit was a of insanity. No cause could be found in 69% of the lawyer, R. W. S. Lutwidge, who died after being women and 60% of the men. Where a cause was attacked by a patient on an inspection of Fisherton alleged, the commonest cited were childbirth, death House, Wiltshire, in 1873. 188 Rollin In 1865, when he was 58, Sam was knocked down his practical concern for others would have stood in a road traffic accident and, although he did not him in good stead today. He was not inspired by the suffer any neurological damage, did complain of literary skills of his brother, sister, and sister-in-law persistent symptoms which led him to resign his com to publish and we should be grateful to Elizabeth mission, and retire to Church House, Weybridge, Holland for not only enriching the College, but for Surrey. He lived a very quiet life for the next 20 years, memorialising a psychiatrist whose distinction in and died at the age of 79, on 7 March 1886. public service would otherwise have been forgotten. Sam never married, but he was close to Elizabeth Gaskell and her family. He kept a fatherly eye on Meta Gaskell when she was at school in London, and Meta attended his funeral. In later life, he also made Acknowledgements many vists to Elizabeth Holland, and her large family I am grateful to Miss Reddy, Librarian, Manchester in Wallasey. Royal Infirmary; to the medical librarians of the Gaskell's only paper in a learned journal was the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; to result of his evidence to a Select Committee of Parlia Dr Berrios, Librarian of the Royal College of Psy ment in 1859 when he drew attention to the lack of chiatrists; to the Archives Department, Warrington provision for many non-violent mentally ill people Borough Library; and to the Administrator, who were deliberately overlooked by the local auth Lancaster Moor Hospital for assistance. I am also orities required by the Poor Law to provide them grateful to Mr Guest-Gornall for permission to with accommodation, in order to save costs. The use his father's unpublished manuscript on Dr paper included evidence of a similar sequestration of Gaskell. mentally ill relatives at home to avoid the expense of This paper is derived from a talk given at the admission to hospital. He suggested a greater Autumn meeting of the College in 1987, the centen range of facilities catering for different levels of ary year of the founding of the Gaskell prize. A fuller disturbance, and that patients could be voluntarily version, with notes and references, is to be published admitted. in the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Gaskell's readiness to adopt new ideas, his intelli Society, and I am grateful to the editor for per gence, his ability to get down to basics, and especially mission to publish this extract.

Psychiatric Bulletin (\999), 13,188-189

Sketches from the history of psychiatry

The fire at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, 1903, remembered

HENRYR. ROLLIN,Chairman, History of Psychiatry Group

On the night of 16/17 November 1988,fire destroyed & MacAlpine, 1974), but one which "occassioned a male ward at Friern Barnet Hospital in North the greatest loss of life of any in the metropolis since London. Two patients died in the conflagration and the great fire of 1666" (Journal of Mental Science, one was injured. 1903). This tragedy was in effect an action re-play on a In comparable vein, the opening paragraph of a very reduced scale ofthat which, in 1903, overtook long first leader in the Lancet of 31 January 1903, the hospital, then known as Colney Hatch Lunatic reads: Asylum. The disaster then was of such magnitude "In the early hours of the morning of January 27th there that newspapers and professional journals competed occurred a tragedy so appalling in its suddenness and with each other in their graphic descriptions of the heartrending by reason of its attendant circumstances harrowing events, not only making it "the worst that the barest and briefest record of the event brings ever disaster in English asylum history' (Hunter horror to the mind. The temporary wards at Colney